This invention relates to reels for electrician's fish tape. A fish tape is a somewhat rigid but substantially flexible elongated member used by electricians for installing wires in conduit. Wires not having sufficient rigidity to allow them to be simply pushed through a conduit must be installed using a fish tape. The fish tape has sufficient strength and flexibility to be threaded or "fished" through a conduit. The electrician then attaches one or more wires to the free end of the tape, and pulls the other end of the tape back out of the conduit, leaving the wires in place.
Fish tape materials range from spring-steel, rectangular wire for maximum strength to highly flexible wound wire to fiberglass cores having a plastic sheath. Wound wire fish tapes and fiberglass/plastic tapes are available from the present assignee, Ideal Industries, Inc., under their trademarks Goldfish.RTM.and S-Class.RTM., respectively. Tapes typically are sold in lengths of 50, 100 or 200 feet. Naturally tapes of this length have to be coiled to be manageable. But the natural resilience of the tape materials resists being constrained in a neat coil. The tape always seeks to uncoil, somewhat in the nature of a mechanical watch spring. Various cases and reels have been used to house a fish tape, with assorted arrangements for paying the tape out of the case during use.
Prior art reels typically use the inside surface of an outer peripheral wall of the reel to constrain the coil. This wall is circumferentially split to define a slot extending around the reel to allow the tape to be extracted from the reel. The halves of the wall normally meet to enclose the coiled tape but they are flexed or spread apart by a winder at the point where the tape exits. The winder can be pushed or pulled around the circumference of the reel to pay out the outer end of the tape. Thus, in essence, the exit opening in the reel moves around the periphery of the reel. U.S. Pat. No. 3,424,435 shows an example of this type of reel.
With the tape constrained by the outer peripheral wall in this type of reel, it is not possible to wind the coil about an interior hub. This means the tape is unmovable relative to the outer wall and necessitates the split or slotted reel technique for getting the tape in and out. Another problem with this reel is the necessity of putting a drag or tension load on the tape as it enters or exits the reel. Tension is required to insure the tape will coil tightly in the storage compartment of the reel. The winders may have a curved or indirect path for the tape passing therethrough for this purpose. This intentional drag or friction on the tape increases the physical effort required to wind the tape, thereby increasing the time it takes with a consequent decrease in productivity.